I'm absolutely delighted to have come on board at Silverpop, joining the EMEA leadership team to further grow the business in the region.
For those of you who don't know us, we're a digital marketing technology provider that unifies marketing automation, email, mobile, and social. Ultimately we help marketers build more personalised digital communications, with the aim of strengthening customer relationships, tracking the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and providing better qualified, sales-ready leads.
As a B2B marketer I've been on the connected sales & marketing journey for many years myself. I started out with list based telemarketing, stopped off on high-end CRM systems, moved on to personalised emailing then in the past five years embraced marketing automation (MA) and social media marketing. So its great to go "vendor side" and get involved with a company at the heart of the market.
For me, outside of being in a post-punk new wave indie rock band (don't ask) its as close as I get to doing a personal passion for a living. (Which is why I also love that Silverpop calls its employees "pop stars").
So why did I join Silverpop? Here are five reasons (with some links to tunes thrown in for good measure):
1. Hot hot hot. Behavioural marketing is hot and we're seeing an explosion in interest in MA, customer experience and personalised digital marketing tools. This market is going places. Fast.
2. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Silverpop is well placed to take advantage of this growth, having a heritage of nearly 10 years in email, MA and social/mobile. Less brash than some of the newer upstarts, its been focussed on doing the best for its customers, with high retention rates and commitment to success. I love that. Its also bigger than many of the perceived "leaders", profitable and growing at a fair old tick. Great place to be!
3. The Song Remains The Same. Let's be honest, many dismiss companies like Silverpop from the MA discussion as our heritage is in email marketing. As if this somewhat invalidates our MA credentials! In my opinion that's nonsense. Email is the backbone of digital marketing and for many segments remains the preferred channel for customers conversations. Silverpop brings together the best of all worlds: scaleabale emailing + MA + social + mobile. Oh, and lets not forget Silverpop have had MA capability since 2007, years ahead of many of its competitors.
4. All You Good Good People. I'm a believer that great companies are made up of great people who exhibit an "employee first" culture. And this came through strongly in the interview process. I got to speak with the majority of Bill Nussey and his Exec team and I came away impressed by an as unified, professional and passionate team as you'd care to meet. It was clear this team had a common purpose and an answer to why they do what they do, not just what they do (read the rather excellent Culture Shock by Will McInnes if you want to know what I mean).
5. Good together. I was more than impressed on my visit to Silverpop's Atlanta HQ to witness the weekly pipeline review meeting. Get this : sales and marketing do a pipeline review. At the same time! Together!! IN THE SAME ROOM!!! This totally blew me away and is a refreshing change to the blame culture and sales/marketing divide in many companies from my past. I just know my job will be 100 times easier because of this collaborative approach.
So, I'm looking forward to the forthcoming weeks and months and getting to know my fellow pop stars. In the meantime, feel free to contact me should you want to know more about Silverpop and what we do.
PS 10 points if anyone can name the post-punk new wave act in the photo. :-)